9 Thoughts All Nursing Moms Have in the Middle of the Night

As a breastfeeding mom you get to spend a lot of time with your thoughts — especially in the wee hours of the night as your little milk-guzzler chugs away. For a human functioning on a normal amount of sleep (read: more than two hours at a time), these quiet moments might present an opportunity for peaceful reflection or productive pondering. But for those of us who have lived through the hellish cycle of nursing around the clock, the reality is that late-night feeding sessions rarely lead to anything productive nor peaceful.

The truth is, you’re more likely to spend those dark hours lamenting the lack of good late-night TV, stoking your anxiety with a series of ill-advised Google searches, or even plotting your soundly-sleeping partner’s demise (just kidding, Husband!). Here are just a handful of the thoughts that have probably crossed your mind while breastfeeding in the middle of the night.

1. How is it already time for another feeding? The relative nature of time has never been so palpable as it does during these overnight feedings. Two hours of sleep feels like two minutes, while two minutes of nursing feels like two hours. Also, how is this kid so damn hungry all the time? He literally just ate.

2. How the hell did I pull off those all-nighters in college? When you’re fighting to keep your eyes open as a tiny human sucks the energy out of you, you become convinced you used to be Superwoman. Though now you kind of want to go back in time and slap the college version of yourself. Why on earth did you voluntarily sacrifice sleep for stupid things like penny-pitcher night and philosophy-exam-cramming?!

3. I’m just going to Google one little thing...It starts innocently enough. You just wanted to know what that microscopic bump on your baby’s leg is. A dozen Wikipedia pages, 20 WebMD entries, a Buzzfeed quiz or two, and a handful of Reddit threads later, the sun’s coming up and you’ve diagnosed your whole family with Ebola.

4. Why is there nothing good on TV? You can recite every word to every infomercial that airs between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. You’ve watched so much Law & Order that you can name the plot twist before you even hear the “chung-chung” sound. You’ve mainlined enough International House Hunters to earn your real estate license in just about any country. And you are so over all of it.

5. That weird noise is definitely the sound of a murderer. Maybe you shouldn’t have binged so many true crime documentaries during maternity leave because you’ve convinced yourself that every creak or thump you hear at 2 a.m. is a serial killer breaking into your home. And the only thing more horrifying than a serial killer breaking into your home is a serial killer showing up while you’re totally topless.

6. Ouch! Being gummed can bring a grown woman to tears. Your kid’s exposure to curse words grows exponentially with each bad latch, but damn this $h*t hurts sometimes. The only thing that may sting worse is your lactation consultant’s betrayal. How could she let you believe breastfeeding would be easy? You desperately try not to think about what’s going to happen when this thing gets teeth.

7. Adult diapers are easily the best invention since the lightbulb. You may have cleared out Target’s entire adult diaper stock, and embarrassed the teenage cashier, but it was totally worth it. Because even if you don’t technically still need them to contain postpartum body horrors, you don’t have time to pee and feed your kid and sleep. That’s what we call multitasking, folks.

8. Can this just be over already? Your nipples feel like they’re falling off and everything around you smells like sour milk. You know exactly how many consecutive minutes of sleep you’ve gotten recently (because at this point it makes the most sense to count it in minutes), as well as exactly how many hours of sleep your partner’s gotten (spoiler alert: more than you). You’ve tallied how many days of breastfeeding you have left and are counting them down with glee.

9. ::Sniff:: I can’t believe this is going to be over someday. You are literally enduring a form of torture. At the same time, you can’t help yourself from ugly-crying when you think about this sweet baby dangling from your boob growing up and leaving you someday.

This story is meant to reflect individual contributors' experiences and does not necessarily reflect What to Expect's point of view. This content is not intended to be used as medical advice, for diagnosis, or treatment.